About Roberto Anaya

I’ve worked as an earth scientist in Austin, Texas USA for almost two decades, primarily in the field of water resources.

I grew up in Houston, Texas where I earned my undergraduate degree in Geoscience with a geology major and geophysics minor. After a short and failed experience as a petroleum exploration geologist with Shell during the mid-1980's oil price collapse, I defaulted back to my carpentry and remodeling job skills that had paid my way through college. I then moved to San Marcos, Texas in 1991 to pursue a graduate degree in applied geographic information systems technology with a career focus towards water resources. While in graduate school, I received grant funding to work as a graduate research assistant helping to develop a lumped parameter model of the Edwards Aquifer and also received grants for two summers as a graduate research assistant performing remote sensing analysis of satellite imagery – with time spent doing field ground-truthing in the remote mountains of southern Mexico and computer lab training at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. I was also very fortunate to be given the opportunity to teach various geoscience lab courses every spring and fall semester and to help teach three summer field geology courses as a stipend graduate teaching assistant. I very much enjoyed my graduate school teaching experience which almost diverted my focus towards a career in academia and away from a career in applied water resources. Nonetheless in 1996 I began my career as a hydrologist with the United States Geological Survey working on both surface water and groundwater studies and in 1999 I took a position with the Texas Water Development Board where as a state licensed professional geoscientist, I now develop and use numerical groundwater flow models to study the state's major and minor aquifers.

After confirming for myself that modern industrial civilization is unsustainable and nearing the end of a great cycle, I began research on alternative lifestyles of self-sufficiency. I first became aware of Permaculture Design Science while discovering Earthship Biotecture during the fall of 2011 and decided it was my perfect problem-solution for a mid-life career change. While it has so far been a slow and gradual transition, there is no doubt that permaculture is my true calling – and most of the knowledge, skills and abilities that I've acquired through both my college education and professional career synergistically reinforce the permaculture design science profession that I now seek.

My permaculture knowledge and experience are quickly gaining momentum as my current goals are to: 1) complete three different permaculture design certificate courses in 2014 in order to broaden my perspective as a student of permaculture under different teaching philosophies, styles, and coverage of course topics; 2) commit to volunteer participation of at least one Austin area Permablitz per month; 3) seek out and network with local permaculture designers and communities; 4) create my own professional permaculture business model and business plan by January 2015; 5) develop a PDC course outline including a set of lesson plans and student course notes to begin teaching permaculture in mid to late 2015; and 6) purchase rural property near Austin, Texas by the end of 2015 to begin designing and implementing my own educational and demonstration permaculture landscape and habitat site.

(UPDATED 2014 OCT)

Updates

As the winter cold fronts begin forcing their way in, permablitzes just keep getting hotter in Texas. This past weekend I participated on my second permablitz at Green Gate Farms just east of Austin and half way to Bastrop.